Book: The Pursuit of the House Boat

J >> John Kendrick Bangs >> The Pursuit of the House Boat



Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 16097-h.htm or 16097-h.zip:
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/6/0/9/16097/16097-h/16097-h.htm)
or
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/6/0/9/16097/16097-h.zip)





THE PURSUIT OF THE HOUSE-BOAT

Being Some Further Account of the Divers Doings of the Associated Shades,
under the Leadership of Sherlock Holmes, Esq.

by

JOHN KENDRICK BANGS

Illustrated By Peter Newell

New York and London
Harper & Brothers
Publishers

1897







TO

A. CONAN DOYLE, ESQ.

WITH THE AUTHOR'S SINCEREST REGARDS AND THANKS FOR THE UNTIMELY DEMISE OF
HIS GREAT DETECTIVE WHICH MADE THESE THINGS POSSIBLE




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

I. THE ASSOCIATED SHADES TAKE ACTION

II. THE STRANGER UNRAVELS A MYSTERY AND REVEALS HIMSELF

III. THE SEARCH-PARTY IS ORGANIZED

IV. ON BOARD THE HOUSE-BOAT

V. A CONFERENCE ON DECK

VI. A CONFERENCE BELOW-STAIRS

VII. THE "GEHENNA" IS CHARTERED

VIII. ON BOARD THE "GEHENNA."

IX. CAPTAIN KIDD MEETS WITH AN OBSTACLE

X. A WARNING ACCEPTED

XI. MAROONED

XII. THE ESCAPE AND THE END



ILLUSTRATIONS

"'DR. JOHNSON'S POINT IS WELL TAKEN'"

"'WHAT HAS ALL THIS GOT TO DO WITH THE QUESTION?'"

"POOR OLD BOSWELL WAS PUSHED OVERBOARD"

"THE STRANGER DREW FORTH A BUNDLE OF BUSINESS CARDS"

"THREE ROUSING CHEERS, LED BY HAMLET, WERE GIVEN"

A BLACK PERSON BY THE NAME OF FRIDAY FINDS A BOTTLE

MADAME RECAMIER HAS A PLAN

"THE HARD FEATURES OF KIDD WERE THRUST THROUGH"

"'HERE'S A KETTLE OF FISH,' SAID KIDD"

"'EVERY BLOOMIN' MILLION WAS REPRESENTED BY A CERTIFIED CHECK, AN'
PAYABLE IN LONDON'"

QUEEN ELIZABETH DESIRES AN AXE AND ONE HOUR OF HER OLDEN POWER

"'THE COMMITTEE ON TREACHERY IS READY TO REPORT'"

"'YOU ARE VERY MUCH MISTAKEN, SIR WALTER'"

"IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT SHYLOCK HAD STOLEN UP THE GANG-PLANK"

JUDGE BLACKSTONE REFUSES TO CLIMB TO THE MIZZENTOP

SHEM IN THE LOOKOUT

CAPTAIN KIDD CONSENTS TO BE CROSS-EXAMINED BY PORTIA

KIDD'S COMPANIONS ENDEAVORING TO RESTORE EVAPORATED PORTIONS OF HIS
ANATOMY WITH A STEAM-ATOMIZER

"'HE TOLD US WE WERE GOING TO PARIS'"

"'YOU ARE A VERY CLEAR-HEADED YOUNG WOMAN, LIZZIE,' SAID MRS. NOAH"

"'THAT OUGHT TO BE A LESSON TO YOU'"

"THE PIRATES MADE A MAD DASH DOWN THE ROUGH, ROCKY HILL-SIDE"

"'NOW, MY CHILD,' SAID MRS. NOAH, FIRMLY, 'I DO NOT WISH ANY WORDS'"

"A GREAT HELPLESS HULK TEN FEET TO THE REAR"




THE PURSUIT OF THE HOUSE-BOAT




I

THE ASSOCIATED SHADES TAKE ACTION


The House-boat of the Associated Shades, formerly located upon the River
Styx, as the reader may possibly remember, had been torn from its moorings
and navigated out into unknown seas by that vengeful pirate Captain Kidd,
aided and abetted by some of the most ruffianly inhabitants of Hades. Like
a thief in the night had they come, and for no better reason than that the
Captain had been unanimously voted a shade too shady to associate with
self-respecting spirits had they made off with the happy floating
club-house of their betters; and worst of all, with them, by force of
circumstances over which they had no control, had sailed also the fair
Queen Elizabeth, the spirited Xanthippe, and every other strong-minded and
beautiful woman of Erebean society, whereby the men thereof were rendered
desolate.

"I can't stand it!" cried Raleigh, desperately, as with his accustomed
grace he presided over a special meeting of the club, called on the bank
of the inky Stygian stream, at the point where the missing boat had been
moored. "Think of it, gentlemen, Elizabeth of England, Calpurnia of Rome,
Ophelia of Denmark, and every precious jewel in our social diadem gone,
vanished completely; and with whom? Kidd, of all men in the universe!
Kidd, the pirate, the ruffian--"

"Don't take on so, my dear Sir Walter," said Socrates, cheerfully. "What's
the use of going into hysterics? You are not a woman, and should eschew
that luxury. Xanthippe is with them, and I'll warrant you that when that
cherished spouse of mine has recovered from the effects of the sea, say
the third day out, Kidd and his crew will be walking the plank, and
voluntarily at that."

"But the House-boat itself," murmured Noah, sadly. "That was my delight.
It reminded me in some respects of the Ark."

"The law of compensation enters in there, my dear Commodore," retorted
Socrates. "For me, with Xanthippe abroad I do not need a club to go to; I
can stay at home and take my hemlock in peace and straight. Xanthippe
always compelled me to dilute it at the rate of one quart of water to the
finger."

"Well, we didn't all marry Xanthippe," put in Caesar, firmly, "therefore we
are not all satisfied with the situation. I, for one, quite agree with Sir
Walter that something must be done, and quickly. Are we to sit here and do
nothing, allowing that fiend to kidnap our wives with impunity?"

"Not at all," interposed Bonaparte. "The time for action has arrived. All
things considered he is welcome to Marie Louise, but the idea of Josephine
going off on a cruise of that kind breaks my heart."

"No question about it," observed Dr. Johnson. "We've got to do something
if it is only for the sake of appearances. The question really is, what
shall be done first?"

"I am in favor of taking a drink as the first step, and considering the
matter of further action afterwards," suggested Shakespeare, and it was
this suggestion that made the members unanimous upon the necessity for
immediate action, for when the assembled spirits called for their various
favorite beverages it was found that there were none to be had, it being
Sunday, and all the establishments wherein liquid refreshments were
licensed to be sold being closed--for at the time of writing the local
government of Hades was in the hands of the reform party.

"What!" cried Socrates. "Nothing but Styx water and vitriol, Sundays? Then
the House-boat must be recovered whether Xanthippe comes with it or not.
Sir Walter, I am for immediate action, after all. This ruffian should be
captured at once and made an example of."

"Excuse me, Socrates," put in Lindley Murray, "but, ah--pray speak in
Greek hereafter, will you, please? When you attempt English you have a
beastly way of working up to climatic prepositions which are offensive to
the ear of a purist."

"This is no time to discuss style, Murray," interposed Sir Walter.
"Socrates may speak and spell like Chaucer if he pleases; he may even part
his infinitives in the middle, for all I care. We have affairs of greater
moment in hand."

"We must ransack the earth," cried Socrates, "until we find that boat. I'm
dry as a fish."

"There he goes again!" growled Murray. "Dry as a fish! What fish I'd like
to know is dry?"

"Red herrings," retorted Socrates; and there was a great laugh at the
expense of the purist, in which even Hamlet, who had grown more and more
melancholy and morbid since the abduction of Ophelia, joined.

"Then it is settled," said Raleigh; "something must be done. And now the
point is, what?"

"Relief expeditions have a way of finding things," suggested Dr.
Livingstone. "Or rather of being found by the things they go out to
relieve. I propose that we send out a number of them. I will take Africa;
Bonaparte can lead an expedition into Europe; General Washington may have
North America; and--"

"I beg pardon," put in Dr. Johnson, "but have you any idea, Dr.
Livingstone, that Captain Kidd has put wheels on this House-boat of ours
and is having it dragged across the Sahara by mules or camels?"

"No such absurd idea ever entered my head," retorted the Doctor.

"Do you then believe that he has put runners on it, and is engaged in the
pleasurable pastime of taking the ladies tobogganing down the Alps?"
persisted the philosopher.

"Not at all. Why do you ask?" queried the African explorer, irritably.

"Because I wish to know," said Johnson. "That is always my motive in
asking questions. You propose to go looking for a house-boat in Central
Africa; you suggest that Bonaparte lead an expedition in search of it
through Europe--all of which strikes me as nonsense. This search is the
work of sea-dogs, not of landlubbers. You might as well ask Confucius to
look for it in the heart of China. What earthly use there is in ransacking
the earth I fail to see. What we need is a naval expedition to scour the
sea, unless it is pretty well understood in advance that we believe Kidd
has hauled the boat out of the water, and is now using it for a
roller-skating rink or a bicycle academy in Ohio, or for some other
purpose for which neither he nor it was designed."

"Dr. Johnson's point is well taken," said a stranger who had been sitting
upon the string-piece of the pier, quietly, but with very evident
interest, listening to the discussion. He was a tall and excessively
slender shade, "like a spirt of steam out of a teapot," as Johnson put it
afterwards, so slight he seemed. "I have not the honor of being a member
of this association," the stranger continued, "but, like all well-ordered
shades, I aspire to the distinction, and I hold myself and my talents at
the disposal of this club. I fancy it will not take us long to establish
our initial point, which is that the gross person who has so foully
appropriated your property to his own base uses does not contemplate
removing it from its keel and placing it somewhere inland. All the
evidence in hand points to a radically different conclusion, which is my
sole reason for doubting the value of that conclusion. Captain Kidd is a
seafarer by instinct, not a landsman. The House-boat is not a house, but a
boat; therefore the place to look for it is not, as Dr. Johnson so well
says, in the Sahara Desert, or on the Alps, or in the State of Ohio, but
upon the high sea, or upon the waterfront of some one of the world's great
cities."

[Illustration: "'DR. JOHNSON'S POINT IS WELL TAKEN'"]

"And what, then, would be your plan?" asked Sir Walter, impressed by the
stranger's manner as well as by the very manifest reason in all that he
had said.

"The chartering of a suitable vessel, fully armed and equipped for the
purpose of pursuit. Ascertain whither the House-boat has sailed, for what
port, and start at once. Have you a model of the House-boat within reach?"
returned the stranger.

"I think not; we have the architect's plans, however," said the chairman.

"We had, Mr. Chairman," said Demosthenes, who was secretary of the House
Committee, rising, "but they are gone with the House-boat itself. They
were kept in the safe in the hold."

A look of annoyance came into the face of the stranger.

"That's too bad," he said. "It was a most important part of my plan that
we should know about how fast the House-boat was."

"Humph!" ejaculated Socrates, with ill-concealed sarcasm. "If you'll take
Xanthippe's word for it, the House-boat was the fastest yacht afloat."

"I refer to the matter of speed in sailing," returned the stranger,
quietly. "The question of its ethical speed has nothing to do with it."

"The designer of the craft is here," said Sir Walter, fixing his eyes upon
Sir Christopher Wren. "It is possible that he may be of assistance in
settling that point."

"What has all this got to do with the question, anyhow, Mr. Chairman?"
asked Solomon, rising impatiently and addressing Sir Walter. "We aren't
preparing for a yacht-race that I know of. Nobody's after a cup, or a
championship of any kind. What we do want is to get our wives back. The
Captain hasn't taken more than half of mine along with him, but I am
interested none the less. The Queen of Sheba is on board, and I am
somewhat interested in her fate. So I ask you what earthly or unearthly
use there is in discussing this question of speed in the House-boat. It
strikes me as a woful waste of time, and rather unprecedented too, that we
should suspend all rules and listen to the talk of an entire stranger."

[Illustration: "'WHAT HAS ALL THIS GOT TO DO WITH THE QUESTION?'"]

"I do not venture to doubt the wisdom of Solomon," said Johnson, dryly,
"but I must say that the gentleman's remarks rather interest me."

"Of course they do," ejaculated Solomon. "He agreed with you. That ought
to make him interesting to everybody. Freaks usually are."

"That is not the reason at all," retorted Dr. Johnson. "Cold water agrees
with me, but it doesn't interest me. What I do think, however, is that our
unknown friend seems to have a grasp on the situation by which we are
confronted, and he's going at the matter in hand in a very comprehensive
fashion. I move, therefore, that Solomon be laid on the table, and that
the privileges of the--ah--of the wharf be extended indefinitely to our
friend on the string-piece."

The motion, having been seconded, was duly carried, and the stranger
resumed.

"I will explain for the benefit of his Majesty King Solomon, whose wisdom
I have always admired, and whose endurance as the husband of three hundred
wives has filled me with wonder," he said, "that before starting in
pursuit of the stolen vessel we must select a craft of some sort for the
purpose, and that in selecting the pursuer it is quite essential that we
should choose a vessel of greater speed than the one we desire to
overtake. It would hardly be proper, I think, if the House-boat can sail
four knots an hour, to attempt to overhaul her with a launch, or other
nautical craft, with a maximum speed of two knots an hour."

"Hear! hear!" ejaculated Caesar.

"That is my reason, your Majesty, for inquiring as to the speed of your
late club-house," said the stranger, bowing courteously to Solomon. "Now
if Sir Christopher Wren can give me her measurements, we can very soon
determine at about what rate she is leaving us behind under favorable
circumstances."

"'Tisn't necessary for Sir Christopher to do anything of the sort," said
Noah, rising and manifesting somewhat more heat than the occasion seemed
to require. "As long as we are discussing the question I will take the
liberty of stating what I have never mentioned before, that the designer
of the House-boat merely appropriated the lines of the Ark. Shem, Ham, and
Japhet will bear testimony to the truth of that statement."

"There can be no quarrel on that score, Mr. Chairman," assented Sir
Christopher, with cutting frigidity. "I am perfectly willing to admit that
practically the two vessels were built on the same lines, but with
modifications which would enable my boat to sail twenty miles to windward
and back in six days less time than it would have taken the Ark to cover
the same distance, and it could have taken all the wash of the excursion
steamers into the bargain."

"Bosh!" ejaculated Noah, angrily. "Strip your old tub down to a flying
balloon-jib and a marline-spike, and ballast the Ark with elephants until
every inch of her reeked with ivory and peanuts, and she'd outfoot you on
every leg, in a cyclone or a zephyr. Give me the Ark and a breeze, and
your House-boat wouldn't be within hailing distance of her five minutes
after the start if she had 40,000 square yards of canvas spread before a
gale."

"This discussion is waxing very unprofitable," observed Confucius. "If
these gentlemen cannot be made to confine themselves to the subject that
is agitating this body, I move we call in the authorities and have them
confined in the bottomless pit."

"I did not precipitate the quarrel," said Noah. "I was merely trying to
assist our friend on the string-piece. I was going to say that as the Ark
was probably a hundred times faster than Sir Christopher Wren's--tub,
which he himself says can take care of all the wash of the excursion
boats, thereby becoming on his own admission a wash-tub--"

"Order! order!" cried Sir Christopher.

"I was going to say that this wash-tub could be overhauled by a launch or
any other craft with a speed of thirty knots a month," continued Noah,
ignoring the interruption.

"Took him forty days to get to Mount Ararat!" sneered Sir Christopher.

"Well, your boat would have got there two weeks sooner, I'll admit,"
retorted Noah, "if she'd sprung a leak at the right time."

"Granting the truth of Noah's statement," said Sir Walter, motioning to
the angry architect to be quiet--"not that we take any side in the issue
between the two gentlemen, but merely for the sake of argument--I wish to
ask the stranger who has been good enough to interest himself in our
trouble what he proposes to do--how can you establish your course in case
a boat were provided?"

"Also vot vill be dher gost, if any?" put in Shylock.

A murmur of disapprobation greeted this remark.

"The cost need not trouble you, sir," said Sir Walter, indignantly,
addressing the stranger; "you will have carte blanche."

"Den ve are ruint!" cried Shylock, displaying his palms, and showing by
that act a select assortment of diamond rings.

"Oh," laughed the stranger, "that is a simple matter. Captain Kidd has
gone to London."

"To London!" cried several members at once. "How do you know that?"

"By this," said the stranger, holding up the tiny stub end of a cigar.

"Tut-tut!" ejaculated Solomon. "What child's play this is!"

"No, your Majesty," observed the stranger, "it is not child's play; it is
fact. That cigar end was thrown aside here on the wharf by Captain Kidd
just before he stepped on board the House-boat."

"How do you know that?" demanded Raleigh. "And granting the truth of the
assertion, what does it prove?"

"I will tell you," said the stranger. And he at once proceeded as follows.




II

THE STRANGER UNRAVELS A MYSTERY AND REVEALS HIMSELF


"I have made a hobby of the study of cigar ends," said the stranger, as
the Associated Shades settled back to hear his account of himself. "From
my earliest youth, when I used surreptitiously to remove the unsmoked ends
of my father's cigars and break them up, and, in hiding, smoke them in an
old clay pipe which I had presented to me by an ancient sea-captain of my
acquaintance, I have been interested in tobacco in all forms, even
including these self-same despised unsmoked ends; for they convey to my
mind messages, sentiments, farces, comedies, and tragedies which to your
minds would never become manifest through their agency."

The company drew closer together and formed themselves in a more compact
mass about the speaker. It was evident that they were beginning to feel an
unusual interest in this extraordinary person, who had come among them
unheralded and unknown. Even Shylock stopped calculating percentages for
an instant to listen.

"Do you mean to tell us," demanded Shakespeare, "that the unsmoked stub of
a cigar will suggest the story of him who smoked it to your mind?"

"I do," replied the stranger, with a confident smile. "Take this one, for
instance, that I have picked up here upon the wharf; it tells me the whole
story of the intentions of Captain Kidd at the moment when, in utter
disregard of your rights, he stepped aboard your House-boat, and, in his
usual piratical fashion, made off with it into unknown seas."

"But how do you know he smoked it?" asked Solomon, who deemed it the part
of wisdom to be suspicious of the stranger.

"There are two curious indentations in it which prove that. The marks of
two teeth, with a hiatus between, which you will see if you look closely,"
said the stranger, handing the small bit of tobacco to Sir Walter, "make
that point evident beyond peradventure. The Captain lost an eye-tooth in
one of his later raids; it was knocked out by a marline-spike which had
been hurled at him by one of the crew of the treasure-ship he and his
followers had attacked. The adjacent teeth were broken, but not removed.
The cigar end bears the marks of those two jagged molars, with the hiatus,
which, as I have indicated, is due to the destruction of the eye-tooth
between them. It is not likely that there was another man in the pirate's
crew with teeth exactly like the commander's, therefore I say there can be
no doubt that the cigar end was that of the Captain himself."

"Very interesting indeed," observed Blackstone, removing his wig and
fanning himself with it; "but I must confess, Mr. Chairman, that in any
properly constituted law court this evidence would long since have been
ruled out as irrelevant and absurd. The idea of two or three hundred
dignified spirits like ourselves, gathered together to devise a means for
the recovery of our property and the rescue of our wives, yielding the
floor to the delivering of a lecture by an entire stranger on 'Cigar Ends
He Has Met,' strikes me as ridiculous in the extreme. Of what earthly
interest is it to us to know that this or that cigar was smoked by Captain
Kidd?"

"Merely that it will help us on, your honor, to discover the whereabouts
of the said Kidd," interposed the stranger. "It is by trifles, seeming
trifles, that the greatest detective work is done. My friends Le Coq,
Hawkshaw, and Old Sleuth will bear me out in this, I think, however much
in other respects our methods may have differed. They left no stone
unturned in the pursuit of a criminal; no detail, however trifling,
uncared for. No more should we in the present instance overlook the
minutest bit of evidence, however irrelevant and absurd at first blush it
may appear to be. The truth of what I say was very effectually proven in
the strange case of the Brokedale tiara, in which I figured somewhat
conspicuously, but which I have never made public, because it involves a
secret affecting the integrity of one of the noblest families in the
British Empire. I really believe that mystery was solved easily and at
once because I happened to remember that the number of my watch was
86507B. How trivial a thing, and yet how important it was, as the event
transpired, you will realize when I tell you the incident."

The stranger's manner was so impressive that there was a unanimous and
simultaneous movement upon the part of all present to get up closer, so as
the more readily to hear what he said, as a result of which poor old
Boswell was pushed overboard, and fell with a loud splash into the Styx.
Fortunately, however, one of Charon's pleasure-boats was close at hand,
and in a short while the dripping, sputtering spirit was drawn into it,
wrung out, and sent home to dry. The excitement attending this diversion
having subsided, Solomon asked:

"What was the incident of the lost tiara?"

[Illustration: "POOR OLD BOSWELL WAS PUSHED OVERBOARD"]

"I am about to tell you," returned the stranger; "and it must be
understood that you are told in the strictest confidence, for, as I say,
the incident involves a state secret of great magnitude. In life--in the
mortal life--gentlemen, I was a detective by profession, and, if I do say
it, who perhaps should not, I was one of the most interesting for purely
literary purposes that has ever been known. I did not find it necessary to
go about saying 'Ha! ha!' as M. Le Coq was accustomed to do to advertise
his cleverness; neither did I disguise myself as a drum-major and hide
under a kitchen-table for the purpose of solving a mystery involving the
abduction of a parlor stove, after the manner of the talented Hawkshaw. By
mental concentration alone, without fireworks or orchestral accompaniment
of any sort whatsoever, did I go about my business, and for that very
reason many of my fellow-sleuths were forced to go out of real detective
work into that line of the business with which the stage has familiarized
the most of us--a line in which nothing but stupidity, luck, and a yellow
wig is required of him who pursues it."

"This man is an impostor," whispered Le Coq to Hawkshaw.

"I've known that all along by the mole on his left wrist," returned
Hawkshaw, contemptuously.

"I suspected it the minute I saw he was not disguised," returned Le Coq,
knowingly. "I have observed that the greatest villains latterly have
discarded disguises, as being too easily penetrated, and therefore of no
avail, and merely a useless expense."

"Silence!" cried Confucius, impatiently. "How can the gentleman proceed,
with all this conversation going on in the rear?"

Hawkshaw and Le Coq immediately subsided, and the stranger went on.

"It was in this way that I treated the strange case of the lost tiara,"
resumed the stranger. "Mental concentration upon seemingly insignificant
details alone enabled me to bring about the desired results in that
instance. A brief outline of the case is as follows: It was late one
evening in the early spring of 1894. The London season was at its height.
Dances, fetes of all kinds, opera, and the theatres were in full blast,
when all of a sudden society was paralyzed by a most audacious robbery. A
diamond tiara valued at L50,000 sterling had been stolen from the Duchess
of Brokedale, and under circumstances which threw society itself and every
individual in it under suspicion--even his Royal Highness the Prince
himself, for he had danced frequently with the Duchess, and was known to
be a great admirer of her tiara. It was at half-past eleven o'clock at
night that the news of the robbery first came to my ears. I had been
spending the evening alone in my library making notes for a second volume
of my memoirs, and, feeling somewhat depressed, I was on the point of
going out for my usual midnight walk on Hampstead Heath, when one of my
servants, hastily entering, informed me of the robbery. I changed my mind
in respect to my midnight walk immediately upon receipt of the news, for I
knew that before one o'clock some one would call upon me at my lodgings
with reference to this robbery. It could not be otherwise. Any mystery of
such magnitude could no more be taken to another bureau than elephants
could fly--"

Copyright (c) 2007. knowncrafts.net. All rights reserved.